Today is the first full day of spring. Visions of green grass and leaves and colorful flowers danced in my head when I heard this on the news. However, when I woke up this morning here in Chicago it was a balmy 28 degrees with a wind chill of 12. Now I know that I have this global warming paranoia due to an environmental ethics class I took senior year of college, but it also seems to me that the climate has changed a lot since I was little. I remember snow on Halloween (I hated having to wear thick coats over my Halloween costumes!), Thanksgiving, and Christmas. We always had a couple snow days during December-January when I was in elementary school, and I even remember a couple of years when it snowed so much that we couldn't open our back door, and were literally house-bound.
I remember short-sleeved Easter dresses; we have pictures of my sister and I out on the green front lawn to prove it. I remember wearing shorts and t-shirts on my birthday (May 26th), outdoor recess and classroom windows open (watch out for the bees!), and going to the swimming pool with my 5th grade class as a "fun day" celebration during the first week in June.
As a contrast, now we don't get much snow until President's Day or later, and there are people walking around wearing shorts in December. (For those of you in the south, I know that might not seem strange, but it's unheard of up here!) I remember freshman year at Wheaton when I went to California for Spring Break (end of March) and there was a blizzard the day we left. And I'll never forget my friend Emily's outdoor wedding in May--a beautiful ceremony, despite the frigid bride and bridesmaids. I hope they can't hear my teeth chattering on their wedding video.
Maybe I missed too many environmental ethics classes, thus I didn't really get the whole global warming idea. All I know is that currently, this first day of spring, there is no warming happening.
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4 comments:
Oh don't even get Shaun going on the "global warming myth" as he might call it. Haha. But you're right...the pattern or something has definitely changed here, too...it gets colder later in the year than it did when we were young. This year the warm has returned in due time but the past few Springs have been chilly, best I remember. When I was a kid we actually had a cold Christmas...the past several years it's been t-shirts. Anyway...I know what you mean.
Yes, I agree with what Katie said. Come on down and visit us in Florida for some warming that is definitely going on!! I'm not ready for it, as you know. (I should specify, not ready for upper 80s already!!!)
What are you two talking about? It has been in the 60's here for the last few days. For me that is sweatshirt weather. (It is okay Annika, you can laugh at me now:))
I should add that it started to snow just after I wrote this post. :) Haha. I'd give anything for the 60s!!
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